The screener will help you find funds that have outperformed, not necessarily funds that will outperform.
The problem is that while there are many funds that outperform indexes over short periods of time, most do not do so in the long run. Picking the ones that do is tough, and if you're using simplistic picking mechanisms like screeners you're quite likely to pick future losers as well as winners.
When you add in the "headwinds" of high expense ratio is and loads, you're quite likely to be better off if you pick the index funds instead, IMHO.
Agree on the former for sure - e.g. past performance etc. Schwab defaults on a 10 year time horizon. Admittedly, I have not looked into longer time horizons.
I generally avoid loads, and schwab does a decent job of showing expense ratios, which I have gravitated toward.
I also had to look up "survivorship bias," which is entirely new to me. I am definitely learning a lot more about investing being on here.
Has anyone found a solid screener that can show a 20 or 30 year track record? Again, I know that "past performance...."
I also recognize that investing isn't an exact science, since there are so many variables, and that there is clear safety in index funds, and chasing unicorn single stocks is way outside my comfort zone, but I do wonder about having a mix in chasing some of that 10-20% higher return funds.
Admittedly, DR got me out of debt. I also met with one of his ELP's for investing and was not impressed at all. So I am a mixed bag with respect to bias.